


Minefield

by 9or10allgood



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Doomsday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:10:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9or10allgood/pseuds/9or10allgood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even a Time Lord needs a friend...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Auntie Beeb owns everything.  Damn it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minefield

The Golden Fleece was a small pub on an out of the way street in Bury. The Doctor had visited the establishment before — several times, in fact, although not with this face. So there was no chance anyone there would know him. Plus, it was early afternoon. Too late for the lunch crowd, too early for the evening regulars. He left the TARDIS standing in an alley and ambled with studied nonchalance down the cobbled street, hands deep in his pockets, overcoat fluttering behind him. A faint breeze ruffled his hair and carried on it the smell of chips, mingled with the less pleasant odour of a paper mill.  
  
He wasn't hungry but he was thirsty. It didn't happen to him often, this kind of thirst, but he knew the need. A pint or two or three. He would alter his metabolism just enough to feel the alcohol. Just enough to maybe ease the tension in his shoulders and his back. With luck it would be enough to blunt the memory of Donna weeping in his arms as he removed every trace of him from her memory. Enough to blur the vision of Rose in the arms of his _other_. Never enough to forget - he doubted enough good English ale existed in the universe for that. But a little bit wouldn't hurt, would it?  
  
He pulled off his sunglasses and looked up at the sky, letting the cones and rods in his eyes soak in the brightness before pushing open the heavy oaken door. Purely for the sensation; there was a kind of _validation_ that came with entering the darkness of a pub from a bright street, and waiting for vision to adjust again to the lesser light. Like a rite of passage. He stood on the well-trodden slate tiles inside the entrance, hands back in his pockets, and waited - blinking once, twice, three times. There was no one else there. It was silent. The television wasn't on, nor was the radio. It was cool and quiet and dark.  
  
No, someone _was_ there. A woman's voice from behind the bar called out. "Be with ya in a tick, luv. Hands full with the CO2 tank."  
  
He heard a faint grunt, then a loud tap of something metal on metal. There was a quiet hiss, then nothing. He moved over to the bar and leaned across a little. A slender hand reached up and felt blindly. "D'ya see a towel up there?"  
  
"Sure," he answered. "Sure." He retrieved the striped cloth from a place that was too far back for her to find it without climbing up from whatever it was she was doing, and pushed it into her questing fingers. Tipped at the ends with tapered, scarlet nails, those fingers. Her left hand. No ring. Why would he notice that? Oh. The owner of the pub. He couldn't remember his name, but at the time of the Doctor's last visit, the man had been in his late fifties, round and florid with little hair and a jovial smile, typical of his trade - _he_ was married. Married to a woman as round and jovial as her mate. Somehow the hand he had just seen didn't fit the memory of the pub owner's wife.  
  
"Need any help with that?" Why would he ask that? It was her job, not his.  
  
"Thanks, no," she answered, but he thought he could hear a smile or merely appreciation in her voice.  
  
Yes, well, that's why he asked, he supposed.  
  
Another clang of metal on metal. It resonated in his memory - like the Cloister Bell. _No_.  
  
A hand appeared again, and then the other. Then a head, female, and definitely not the pub owner's wife.  
  
She smiled. "Sorry, luv. The fittings for that tank were givin' me a bit of trouble. Someday, maybe, I'll convince Mr. Durwood to fix the bloody thing for good. Thanks for waitin'. What can I get ya?"  
  
The Doctor gave his memory a metaphysical slap to the forehead. _Durwood! That was the man's name!_ He summoned up a reasonable facsimile of his brightest smile. "Hello. I'll have a pint of - of whatever. Bartender's choice."  
  
She nodded once, folded the towel neatly and tossed it over her shoulder; on the other was a thick braid of hair curling around from the back of her head. "Bartender's choice it is. Hungry, too? I can fix up somethin' fast. Got a bit of corned beef in the back. A reuben, maybe? Some chips?"  
  
"No," he replied. Then, as an afterthought, "thanks." Not ginger but rude. _No_.  
  
"Would y'like the telly on, then?" she asked, almost absently. He looked and she was studying the bank of pulls as if trying to decide exactly which drink would suit him. She glanced at him again, then turned decisively back to one in particular. He could see it had an image of a bird on it.  
  
Turning away, he rocked on his heels, hands in his pockets, and took silent stock of his surroundings. Like so many pubs, it was relatively narrow, and the common area scarcely balanced the massive bar behind him. Tall stools, with cracked leather seats, the colour of oxblood, and scuffed brass foot rings stood sentry along the dark wood of the bar. His eye fell on the stool in the middle and he thought, for a moment, that he could hear shouts of laughter and conversation, and one very improper, whispered invitation. He looked around at the dark panelled walls, lined with booths, pictures of happy people cluttering the spaces on the board-n-batten. Some were autographed, so he supposed they were famous in one way or another. He wandered over to one and looked at it carefully. Nope. Didn't recognize the man in wire glasses and wearing a pretentious looking turtleneck and tweed jacket. He squinted at the writing on the picture: _To: Angus. Best wishes._ In block print, but the signature was illegible. So, this one, at the very least, was a legend in his own mind. There were - many - obligatory pictures of various versions of Manchester United; the 1998 team photo was somewhat crooked, and he straightened it. There was one of Her Majesty, the Queen, off by itself a little. As was fitting... A few sconce lights on the walls, every other one lit under its conical green shade.   
  
_Wait. There had been a question_. From the bartender with pretty hands and scarlet fingernails. "No. No telly. Thanks."  
  
"Been here before, then?"  
  
"Yeah, a few times."  
  
"Musta been before my time," she said. "Well, sit where you like. You have the run of the place."  
  
The Doctor turned back, walked over to the bar and slid onto a stool. "Here okay?"  
  
"There's fine." She grinned and handed him a pint.  
  
He sipped it, then raised both eyebrows. "What? Not Boddington's?"  
  
"You thought I would serve you the local favourite?"  
  
"Thought you might," he answered. "What is it?"  
  
"Bluebird Bitter. I don't know why but it seemed appropriate."  
  
He took another swallow and closed his eyes. "Appropriate, indeed. I guess that's what makes you a good bartender."  
  
"That, luv, is what makes me a _brilliant_ bartender."  
  
Idioms strictly aside, her speech was almost without accent. No, that wasn't quite right. Her speech had traces of several accents. Listening to her voice, trying to decipher the layers, was like being an archaeologist at a dig site. Here, a word or phrase was almost northern. Another might be Londoner. Yet another was faintly Welsh, from the streets of Cardiff. Underlying it all was something gentle, not quite languid - she spoke too quickly, really - still, a softening of a vowel, a shift of emphasis. Something...  
  
He studied her face. She wasn't beautiful, not at all. She was... pleasant. Round face, apple cheeks, a missed-it-by-a-bit-not-quite button nose. Her mouth. Well, _it_ was beautiful. Full lower lip, upper lip was bow-shaped. Not a cupid's bow. More a - a longbow. A generous mouth. He lingered there for a moment, then continued his perusal. A little sagging in the jowl; mid-forties, maybe. No surgery. Either couldn't afford it or not vain enough to want it. He looked at her eyes. Startlingly blue, and amused. Not sardonic, not offended. Just... amused. _So_ , he decided, _not vain enough_. Her hair, unbraided, would fall somewhere in the middle of her back. A sparse fringe covered her brow, just long enough to reach her eyes. It was mostly blonde. In the dim light of the pub, it seemed lifeless, but he imagined it would glow in the sunlight. She wasn't precisely slender. The green apron was moulded to an hourglass figure, albeit a little thick in the middle. Under the apron, a crisp white shirt and dark washed denim jeans. She wasn't very tall, about shoulder high to him. But her hands were elegant, and her mouth was – was truly beautiful.  
  
The Doctor cleared his throat. "You're not from these - "  
  
She chuckled. "Where am I when I'm to home?" Leaning against the bar, she lifted a hand and brushed the fringe of mostly blonde from her eyes. "Sorry. If you'd finished that question, I would have had a John Cleese/Silverado flashback and this conversation would’ve gone nowhere fast."  
  
 _As you may have noticed, I am not from these parts._ The scene played in the Doctor's mind and he smiled briefly; that film was one of his favourites. It was a little known fact that he had a fondness for American westerns – in spite of all the guns. "So the people of Bury have taken you into their embrace..."  
  
Her smile widened as she pulled the bar towel from her shoulder and needlessly wiped the varnished oak surface between them. "Well, the people in this pub have, anyway." She tapped the pint in front of him. "Top that off for ya, luv?"  
  
There it was again. This time it was almost Cockney but not quite. He nodded and she took the half empty glass to the tap and pulled the lever, then handed it back. "So, yeah," he asked, lifting it to his lips. " _Where_ are ya when you're t'home?" He maintained eye contact over the rim. She was a bit of a mystery - well, not a mystery. She was a diversion and he liked diversions, as a rule. A puzzle, and puzzles were good and entertaining and filled with clues, and he was watching for clues. It was something he did without thinking about it much, and he was on autopilot, anyway.  
  
Her gaze didn't waver, and there was no hint of hesitation or prevarication. "I was born in Durham," she answered. "Durham, _North Carolina_. United States," she continued, apparently realizing that he was shifting her north and east and that he was puzzled by it. "Spent my formative years in Mississippi and Alabama, my adult years in Georgia. The Deep South."  
  
 _Moonlight and magnolias, starlight in your hair, all the world a dream come true._ He blinked. _Now where in hell did that come from?_ "What brought you here? Husband in the military? You certainly didn't come here to work in a pub. Not even as fine an establishment as this!" He noted the slightest tension at the words "husband" and "military". The blue in her eyes seemed a little less vivid.  
  
She gave the bar another needless wipe before draping the towel over the brass rail beside her. "No and no," she replied. "Was married, long ago. Ended long ago. Never married again." She reached under the bar and pulled out a water bottle, opened it. She appropriated a slice of lime from a small bowl and squeezed it so that the juice ran into the bottle, then pushed the slice in as well. He had the feeling that she was considering carefully what to say next as she gave the bottle a gentle swirl before taking a swallow. "I had a son. He was military - Marine. He died in action. In Iraq." Clipped. Matter of fact. _I've grieved and I'm done_ , she seemed to be saying. _Move on_.  
  
Him being him, he didn't. "I'm sorry. How long ago?"  
  
There was a flicker of emotion on her face. "Six years, near enough," she answered. "One of the first. One of the first in a long and bloody war." There was warning in her eyes, now. "And that's the end of it, mate."  
  
 _Him being him_... "Is it ?"  
  
For a long moment, it hung in the balance. She would either shut him down completely or she would talk. For reasons he couldn't quite understand, he hoped it would be the latter. In the space of a minute, she was no longer _simply_ a puzzle. He wasn't sure what she had become but a _mere_ diversion, she was not. Time slowed, even for a Time Lord. He waited with the patience of the stars, and that was surprising in and of itself.  
  
Finally, she took another long pull from the water bottle. "It was a choice. Stay in the middle of all those memories, or leave. I chose to leave. No one chooses to live in a minefield, do they? Every where I would turn, something to trigger some random memory of my boy. Of the marriage that failed. No place safe, right? Sights and sounds and voices... smells." She looked at him, and the weight of that intense regard was almost too much. Even for him. "Sweet tea," she said. "You lot don't drink sweet tea here. Not in tall glasses, with ice and lemon. Condensation running down the glass. You don't lift the glass to your forehead on a hot afternoon, standing out on the front lawn with a lawnmower idling and the sweet smell of cut grass all around." The look in her eyes was mesmerizing, haunting. It would not have taken a Time Lord’s touch to know that she was seeing herself bringing a glass of tea to a fifteen or sixteen year old boy with blond hair and blue eyes. "Drive down a street - any residential street, anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line - any weekend during the months of May through September and you'll see that. Well, I didn't want to see _that_ anymore. So I left. My son," she swallowed. "My son made me a beneficiary, left me money. I got on the internet, bought a ticket to London, packed up a kit and left. No more minefields."  
  
Of course, he knew better - far better - how that worked. "Except the ones in your head."  
  
She smiled. It was an honest smile, forthright. "Ah, but those are already mapped. I know where the landmines are. I know where to step and when. The day he was born." The smile vanished. "The day he died. The day we buried him. Others... I pull them out when it's safe to do so." She grimaced slightly. "Or when some nosy bloke in a pub asks."  
  
The Doctor arched an eyebrow and nodded slowly. "Oi. Nosy. Tha's me."  
  
"Oi," she echoed, and he had the feeling that she was storing the tone, the inflection in a database somewhere. To be pulled out and used as needed. And that was when he understood. She was becoming of all places and none, becoming a citizen of the world – however she wanted to define that world, and as long as that definition _didn’t_ include wherever it was in Georgia, USA she had lived and raised her son. He could already guess the course of the six years between her terrible loss and now. She’d gotten to London, knocked around a bit. Probably stayed there until something happened that had threatened her fragile peace of mind. Maybe she'd heard some tourist with an accent from her home. Goodbye, London. Moved on to Cardiff. A city, again. Pleasant anonymity in a city. Who knows what triggered a memory there? The Welsh are accounted to be fey folk, moving to their own pace, a little outside the mainstream by other standards. The romantic ideal of the American Deep South is the same. Maybe it hit a little too close to home. So she moved... north. To someplace smaller, less touristy. Bury was perfect. The name said it all.  
  
It was like she was... regenerating, and still trying to find exactly what form she wanted to take. Until she did, she would sample, keep what she wanted, throw away the rest.  
  
Not a bad way to do it, all things considered. What bits and pieces would he have kept or discarded given the choice? What would he want to keep in the future? Memory reared its ugly head, but it wasn't one of the memories he had come here to ease. It was another, one much more recent. One from only yesterday, spoken by a reluctant seeress on a bus, at the triumphant end of a day that had gone horribly wrong. _You be careful, because your song is ending, sir._ The Doctor's eyes darkened a little and he held the pint to his lips with a hand that trembled visibly. His - companion - noted it, looked away and he was grateful for the privacy. She bent to lift a tray of glasses that had been drying on a stool behind the bar, then took a clean bar towel and began to methodically polish them before placing them on the shelf behind her. The silence deepened, and not in a good way.  
  
He turned around on the tall stool, rested his arms on the bar, legs splayed in front of him. The last time he had come to this place... It was before his last regeneration, before he met Rose. His "daft old face" and northern burr had fit right in with the working class custom that night. The Red Devils playing Millwall in Cardiff, and the place had been packed. Old Mr. Durwood had brought in two television sets for the game and the patrons were roughly divided between the front and the back of the pub. The Doctor had sat at the bar between the two groups, eyes going back and forth, watching the people as much as the game, even though he - in that incarnation, especially - loved football and acknowledged an affection for Manchester United over any other team on this island. He'd been content to drink and watch and (for once) keep his sarcastic comments to himself. He'd also left the pub that night with a very attractive woman with red hair, skin like cream, and (as it turned out) a temper like an Adnarian she-wolf in full moult ...  
  
 _No. Won't go there._ He swivelled around again and pushed the now empty glass in front of him and nodded a mute request. She reached for it and the Doctor laid his hand on her wrist as she took it. "May I ask your name?"  
  
"You may." For all of her noticing his faltering a few moments earlier, her voice remained calm, cheerful. Open, even. She had lost her son, abandoned her homeland, and was working tending a bar in a small pub in Bury, Lancashire, UK. Yet she remained calm, cheerful and open. Even after he had made her traipse through one of those minefields she had travelled - how many miles? - to escape.  
  
And maybe she was flirting with him now, just a little. He grinned. "All right. So what is your name?"  
  
"Anna. Anna Clayton."  
  
He drew on memory and summoned his very best "Captain Jack Harkness". "Pleased to meet you, Anna Anna Clayton."  
  
Her rolled eyes expressively demonstrated just how many times she’d heard that. Maybe even Jack would have fallen on his face here, and the thought cheered him.  
  
The glass was in front of him again, and she – Anna – was standing there, one hand on her hip and her head cocked to one side. “Where I come from, sir, a gentleman returns the favour of a name, and without having to be asked.” This time the accent was cultured, sophisticated, and redolent with the heady and gentle humours of the southern United States, even as the corners of her eyes crinkled in frank amusement.  
  
“Oi! I’m sorry. Really, I am.” He thought back quickly, wanting to be sure that he didn’t use a name he’d already used in this very pub with a very different face. _Don’t think I ever gave one. Definitely not to the redhead_.“McCrimmon. James McCrimmon. Doctor McCrimmon.” He could see her considering whether or not to try and out-Jack him, so he hurried on. “Call me James. Or Jamie. Or - or Doctor.”  
  
“James,” she nodded. “Very nice to meet you.” She extended her slender hand across the bar and he took it. They shook, very business-like, and released at the same time. “What brings you back to Bury, James?”  
  
“Back? What makes you think I don’t live here?”  
  
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” was the quick reply. “I’ve worked here for almost two years. You say you’ve been here before but you’ve not been in that I've seen. No, I don’t work every night but I do most, and I would have surely noticed you. And remembered. You’re quite the pretty boy.” Definitely flirting but in a way that comforted rather than challenged. “Unless someone keeps you on a tight rein,” she looked pointedly at his left hand. “An’ I don’t see any signs of that. So the question remains. What brings you back to Bury?”  
  
He propped an elbow on the bar, rested his chin on his closed fist and regarded her in silence. After the reluctant candour he had coaxed from her, he felt he owed her something in return. Not the truth, obviously. Or, not the plain unvarnished truth. But he was the Doctor, and he could dance with metaphors with the best of ‘em, and she started it, besides. His mouth turned down at one corner, and his already dark eyes darkened. “Minefield, Anna. I’m tiptoeing around my own right now.”  
  
Rather than take offence, she patted the hand that held the glass. “I thought you might be. Lost someone, did you?”  
  
 _Damn it! He was not going to go all teary._ He checked his metabolism. Tolerance for alcohol had been lowered a bit but not enough to be maudlin. He waited to answer until emotion had loosened its grip on his vocal cords and, when he spoke, he managed something like the same clipped tone she had demonstrated earlier. “Yes. Two someones, actually. “ _One was my best mate. The other was the love of my life._ “An accident. Recently.” Not the truth, of course, but he couldn’t very well tell her that it hadn't been an accident but had been his choice, made for both of them, whether or not they wanted it. And, to put it mildly, neither of them had wanted it. _Although, Rose is getting_ something _out of it. And Donna gets to live._  
  
“I’m sorry,” Anna said quietly.  
  
“Yeah. Me, too.”  
  
“In London, then?”  
  
“Near enough,” he answered, and closed his eyes, suddenly weary to the bone.  
  
He felt her fingers brush his hair back from his forehead, soothing, like a mother toward her child. “Someone told me – then – that it would get better with time. I didn’t believe them and I don’t expect you will believe me now. But it does. Somewhat.”  
  
He knew that, of course. Nine hundred years had taught him that. Loss beyond measure had driven the lesson home. There were timelines beyond timelines he had yet to travel... worlds to explore. He knew that. He would have other... companions. He would face other enemies. Nine hundred years past and, with luck, he should be good for a couple hundred more. With luck. Alone. _Bloody hell! I – will – not – cry!_ He clenched his jaw against the sudden pain in his throat, in his hearts, that damned near took his breath away.  
  
He didn’t know that she had come from around the bar until he felt her arm across his shoulder. At that simple, human contact, the Doctor closed his eyes more tightly, put his head down on his forearm – and sobbed. Her arm left his shoulder and it registered on him – distantly – that she was moving swiftly to the door of the pub. He heard the click of the lock, knew that she was protecting him from unkind eyes who might happen in and see – not a soul in need of comfort but some poor sod who couldn’t hold his drink. Just as quickly, she was beside him again, turning him without protest on the stool so that she was standing between his bent knees and his head was on her shoulder, his face pressed into her neck, and his arms were around her and hers were around him, and she was cradling him, soothing him. All while he gasped brokenly about Rose and Donna and Daleks and parallel worlds and time wars and Rassilon knows what else. Oh, and minefields. He babbled on about bloody, _fucking_ minefields he couldn’t leave behind because they were everywhere, every _when_ , and he _couldn’t_ escape them no matter how hard he tried. And she never flinched, never made a sound other than “shhhh... it will be all right. It will be all right. Shhhh...”  
  
How long she stood holding him that way, he did not know. He honestly did not know, and had no desire to cast his mind back to calculate the passage of time. Too long or not long enough. The Doctor finally lifted his head and looked into the face of this angel who had taken pity on him. Anna’s blue eyes were shadowed, her cheeks were tear-stained, but he saw serenity in her gaze. He did _not_ see recrimination, nor doubt nor fear. There were no questions, just acceptance. Maybe she thought him mad; she wouldn’t be the first. Maybe she was remembering a time when she had wept in the arms of someone, muttering disjointed nonsense. Maybe...  
  
“I – I’m sorry,” he whispered.  
  
“Don’t be,” she whispered back. “We all need someone like this, sometime in our lives. If we’re lucky, we find them. Or they find us, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Y’okay?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah,” she murmured and brushed the tears from his cheeks. She turned him back around so that he was facing the bar, trailed her fingers across his back and shoulders as she left him to go to the other side. Once there, she packed some ice in a clean towel, picked up some napkins and came back to his side. Taking the stool next to him, she offered a napkin so he could blow his nose, then held the towel with ice to the back of his neck. The coolness slipped down his spine and summoned a convulsive shudder as he felt the tension in his back grip, then ease. She brought it around to his temple, then his forehead, the other temple. Then one eye, then the other. When he opened them again, the Doctor could feel that they were clear and bright. He took the towel from her and placed it on the bar, took her hand, turned it palm up and kissed it. Her smile was absolutely brilliant.  
  
“Oi! Pretty boy,” she grinned and winked.  
  
He held her hand tightly in his. “No. Just grateful. So very grateful.”  
  
The Doctor stood – carefully, because his knees were communicating a certain unwillingness to support him – and gathered her up into his arms, hugged her close, kissed the top of her head. “Anna...”  
  
Her arms tightened around his waist and she spoke into his chest. “So. You okay to drive? Do I need to worry about you hitting something when you leave here? Dinging up what I’m sure is some fancy sports car? I can fix you a cuppa – “  
  
“No, I’m fine.” He did not want to let her go. A man – a Time Lord – doesn’t find simple, honest compassion every day of the week and he was loathe to leave such an unexpected haven. Finally, however, he did drop his arms to his side. She stepped away from him, keeping one hand in hers for a lingering moment. He coughed, patted his coat pocket. “What do I – I mean, how much – “  
  
“No, Doctor. Put your money away. This one was on me, yeah?”  
  
She followed him to the door of the pub, unlocked it and held it open. He pulled his sunglasses out, slipped them on but stopped to look over them, into the bright blue of her eyes. She stepped out into the sunlight and, yes, her mostly blonde hair _did_ , in fact, glow. “Ta, Anna.”  
  
She smiled with all the warmth she could muster. “Y’all come back now, y’hear?”  
  
The Doctor dropped a kiss on an apple cheek, then turned and walked away.  
  


< ? >

  
  
  
Anna closed the door and went back to her place behind the bar. Was it enough? Would it get him through the trials to come? She wasn’t a Time Lord. She couldn’t see the timelines. She was a woman of Earth who just happened to have friends – including one _very_ special friend – in high places. Very high places.   
  
She had slipped and called him “Doctor”. Hopefully, he hadn't noticed just how easily his name rested on her tongue. Or, if he did, maybe he thought — oh, bollocks! She didn't really care what he thought. As he — _her_ Doctor — had said he would, he had needed her and she had been there for him, and that was that. Different face, yeah, but she would have known that tortured soul regardless of how he looked.  
  
Like knows like, after all.  
  
She glanced at the clock on the mantle. Four o’clock. Those who prefer whiskey and stout to tea would be arriving soon. She picked up the remote and switched on the telly, changing the channel to CNN. Delayed broadcast for the viewers in Europe and the UK...  
  
Rick Sanchez was going on about his list. At the top of it today... landmines and the inadequacy of international sanctions regarding them.  
  
Anna sighed.


End file.
